Mubarak Wants One Last Crackdown for The Road [Updated]

On the face of it, Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak vowed to leave power on his own terms — not those of the protesters who’ve spent the past seven days demanding he step down. But looking at his just-finished speech a little deeper, Mubarak all but threatened one final crackdown on the dissidents who’ve upended his 30 years of rule.

Passive-aggressively, Mubarak told the cameras, “I did not intend to run for the coming presidency. I have exhausted my life serving Egypt and its people.” Riiiiiiiight. He’ll spend “the few months remaining in my current term… ensuring the peaceful transition of power.”

That may be what Mubarak is counting on. His attempt to break the protesters by shutting off the internet and cellphone service failed. So he portrayed the protests as being hijacked by “outlaws” and described the Egyptian people as cowering subjects terrified by the revolution. “I instruct the police apparatus to shoulder its responsibilities,” Mubarak said, “and protect the citizens in absolute dignity … arrest the outlaws, those who caused the chaos.”

That sounds like an invitation for a crackdown. Although there has been some rioting, the protests have been largely peaceful. One protester in Cairo today even told Al Jazeera that her friends are starting a soccer tournament in the packed Tahrir Square. But if the police still consider Mubarak’s instructions to have the force of law, those protesters may soon be under assault if they don’t disperse. Will the Army defend the protesters against the police, after saying earlier that soldiers won’t open fire on civilians?

The rest of Mubarak’s speech was bizarre: he referred to himself in the third person. He said he “never sought power or influence.” He urged the toothless parliament to amend the constitution so anyone can run for president in September, never mentioning his son and heir apparent Gamal — who’s in London right now.

Most defiantly, he rejected calls from foreign dignitaries (and forecasting models) to flee Egypt, vowing, “I will die on its soil.” Many in the streets seem to want to oblige him. Now to see if his speech amounted to incitement.

Update, 5:35 p.m.: That incitement may have already begun. Al Jazeera is reporting that there are clashes between pro- and anti-Mubarak crowds in Alexandria. Stones were thrown; security officials fired shots into the air to disperse the conflagration. As I type, there’s a tank driving through Mahatit Masr Square, and Al Jazeera’s correspondent says that protesters came up to a tank earlier and asked soldiers to save them from pro-regime elements. (An Army armored personnel carrier has “Down With Mubarak” spray-painted on it.) “I believe they belong to the security, to the police,” Mohammed Sudan, a member of the banned Muslim Brotherhood Islamist opposition group, told Al Jazeera, denying that the pro-Mubarak crowd was an authentic counter-protest.

Update, 6:55 p.m.: President Obama, in a statement from the White House, stopped short of calling for Mubarak to step down. But he said that he told Mubarak in a phone call after Mubarak’s speech that “an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful and it must begin now.” Now begins the parsing: there’s a long time between now and the scheduled September elections. What does an “orderly transition” mean if Mubarak stays in power?